After 49 years in law enforcement, Greeley Police Chief Jerry Garner reflects and prepares for retirement

Greeley Police Chief Jerry Garner stands in his office Wednesday in Greeley. After 49 years in law enforcement, 12 of those serving as Greeley police chief, Garner is retiring. (Joshua Polson/jpolson@greeleytribune.com)

There's a bookshelf next to the door of Greeley Police Chief Jerry Garner's office, and it's the one part of the room where he allows his personality to come through. There's an array of trinkets there — a nutcracker dressed as a police officer, a pig in a patrolman's hat, and a toy gopher in an officer's uniform, ready to sing the Inner Circle song "Bad Boys" at the push of a button. They're souvenirs of his 49 years in law enforcement — 12 of which he spent as Greeley's police chief — and he chuckled as he showed them off Wednesday.

A career in writing

In addition to working as a police officer, Greeley Police Chief Jerry Garner is also a published author. He's written 11 books so far, all of them nonfiction about police work. He published his first book in 1979, while working for the Lakewood Police Department. He has a 12th book outlined, and he said he plans to work on it when he retires to Texas.

That was just hours after he'd met with the family of Thomas Garcia, the man who died after a Greeley police officer shot him Tuesday morning. Garcia had refused to obey the officer's commands; instead, he brandished a knife and resisted the Taser police used. Garner has spoken before about the toll such incidents can take on an entire department — he has said the whole building can feel subdued and sad for days afterward. But he still personally met with the family and had the inevitable difficult conversation.

"All you can really do is answer their questions and say 'I'm sorry for your loss,'" he said.

“I saw a 93-year-old deputy in Texas who just retired, and he still looked pretty good in uniform. Maybe I’ll find a Mayberry that needs an Andy.

— Jerry Garner, Greeley police chief

Garner has had many difficult conversations in his office, a few feet from the gopher and the nutcracker and the pig on his bookshelf. That dichotomy is the core of his job.

On June 1, Garner will retire from his job as police chief, a position he's held since 2006. City officials, police officers and others have credited him with building the Greeley Police Department into one of the most professional and ethical in the state. He did that by working hard, both on and off the clock, and by holding himself and his employees to high ethical standards.

But when he looks back over the half-century he spent doing the job, the word he still uses to describe it is "fun."

Before Greeley

Born in San Angelo, Texas, Garner was always a writer. As he got older, he started to think about becoming a journalist. He studied journalism in college, which is how he wound up working as an intern at a small daily newspaper in Texas during his senior year.

Then he did a ride-along with a police officer, the father of his future wife.

It changed everything.

"I said, 'This looks interesting,' " he said.

That was the end of his journalism career. He got his first job as a police officer in 1968.

That first gig was in Victoria, Texas, then a town of about 40,000 people in the southeastern part of the state. He later moved to San Marcos, Texas, a smaller town about 100 miles to the north. He remembers those as the times he began to learn about the realities of police work, good and bad.

Greeley police Chief Jerry Garner rests his hand over his badge on Wednesday while in his office at the Greeley Police Station, 2875 10th St. (Joshua Polson/jpolson@greeleytribune.com)

Even though he worked nights, the humidity was so high he had to keep the air conditioning running in his patrol car the entire shift. The work wasn't always glamorous — he remembered one time in those early days when he arrested a drunk driver. After the arrest, he had to look through the driver's car, which was littered with trash and half-eaten hamburgers, he said.

"As I was looking through it, a big cockroach just walked across my hand," he said. "That's the only time I've ever seen cockroaches in a car."

But he loved the job. Although he's an introvert at heart, he liked talking to people as a police officer, and he liked being a member of the community.

"You actually have the sense that you're making a difference," he said.

After three years in Texas, Garner accepted a job in Junction City, Kan. He worked as a training officer for the police department there. Junction City had a disproportionate amount of crime for a community of 20,000 people, Garner said, something he attributed to the pimps and prostitutes who came through on their way to the nearby military base.

During his time there, his wife worked for the local government in the welfare office. They saw the same people, he said, because he might arrest them on a Saturday, and they would arrive in the office for a welfare check Monday morning.

"It was a very sad situation," he said.

When he heard the Lakewood Police Department was hiring police officers from across the country, he decided to apply. He got the job, and in 1973, he came to Colorado.

Back then, the Lakewood Police Department was one of the first in the country to require its officers to have four-year college degrees. It's part of the reason the department is known as one of the best in the nation — Garner estimates about 70 former officers have gone on to become police chiefs.

"They train you to be a leader," he said.

That wasn't on his mind when he took the job, though. At first, he said, he didn't want to be a police chief at all. He enjoyed being an officer too much.

But even as an officer he took notes on what his chiefs were doing and what he might do differently. It proved helpful when he started to change his mind about leading.

"As you get older, literally chasing down crooks is less fun," he said.

Eventually, he did accept leadership roles and began to rise through the ranks. He liked it more than he thought he would. When he retired from the Lakewood Police Department in 2003 — three years before he came to Greeley — he did so as a division chief.

Changing the culture

Greeley police Lt. Adam Turk doesn't want Garner's legacy in Greeley to be all about the department's recovery from the 2007 murder of Heather Garraus, just months after he arrived. He said Garner has done so much more than lead the department out of that. But he's also candid about Garner's role in the healing process.

Greeley Police Chief Jerry Garner stands in the atrium at the Greeley Police Station, 2875 10th St. Garner’s final day will be June 1. (Joshua Polson/jpolson@greeleytribune.com)

Garraus was the wife of then-Greeley police officer Ignacio Garraus, who had an affair with Shawna Nelson, the wife of a Weld County Sheriff's deputy. Nelson shot and killed Heather Garraus in January 2007.

"We had really hit a bad time in our department," Turk said. "I refer to that as our rock bottom."

Garner agreed.

"It was a very dark time," he said. "Immorality and bad judgment led to innocent people getting hurt. We learned from that."

Turk said Garner helped the department re-establish a culture of credibility.

He did that, in part, by having an open door policy with his officers and getting to know them on a personal level.

"He wanted to talk to everybody," Turk said. "That's hard. To be able to reach out to everybody is really difficult."

He was genuine about it. Turk said one of the best things about working with Garner was he always felt listened to.

People outside the police department could see the difference, too.

"He was exactly the right person for that job at that time," said Weld District Attorney Michael Rourke. "He set very clear expectations for his department and the officers who worked for him."

Garner emphasized what officers do off the clock is just as important as what they do on the clock. Turk said he challenged police officers to hold themselves accountable and told officers clearly what was acceptable and what wasn't.

"He tried to teach our entire department that no matter where you're at you're leaders in the community," Turk said.

Sandi Elder, a close friend of Garner's in addition to serving on his Latino advisory committee, called Garner the most ethical person she has ever met.

"He changed the culture of the department," she said. "He told me, 'It's not fair you're held to a higher standard (as a police officer), but you have public trust.' "

And he held himself to those standards, too.

"If he found a $20 bill on the ground — you or I would think, 'Cool, that's $20,' " she said. "He puts it into evidence."

Someone to talk to

Garner was on duty as a division chief at the Lakewood Police Department on April 20, 1999, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire inside nearby Columbine High School, killing 13 people before taking their own lives. He wasn't on the scene, but he managed a SWAT team that was.

He also spoke to his officers when they returned. They told him about the smell of blood and gunpowder, the piercing scream of the fire alarms and the terrible sights of teenagers gunned down inside their high school. It changed some of those officers forever.

Nineteen years after that shooting, Garner said it still stands out to him. It changed the way police respond to shootings nationwide, and it's a reminder of how crushing police work can be. He still draws on things he learned from that time.

Greeley Police Chief Jerry Garner sits among his newest book, “Why Cops Die (And How to Prevent It),” and some of his older publications while in his office at Greeley Police Station. This most recent book is his 11th. (Joshua Polson/jpolson@greeleytribune.com)

Those difficult parts of law enforcement make Garner's long career even more remarkable, said Greeley Mayor John Gates, himself a former police officer.

"You don't see people at their best when you're working as a cop," he said. "A really, really small percentage of people stay in (law enforcement) 50 years."

Elder said all of Garner's experiences — good and bad — helped him to be a successful police chief.

"That's what makes him who he is, all that life experience," she said. "He's seen a lot, and he's been through a lot. … It takes a special type of person to actually compute that or deal with that."

For Garner personally, working with quality police officers helped him last in an emotionally draining line of work. There is so much emphasis on teamwork and camaraderie, he said, that officers heckle each other any time they appear in the media individually. Police never do things by themselves, he said — they do things as a team. He likes that spirit.

He tells his officers they need a support system at home, too. In the early years of his career, police officers were expected to be tough, which meant dealing with things on their own. The mental strain of that expectation sometimes led them to drink heavily or hurt their families or themselves.

That stigma associated with asking for help is still there, but he thinks it's lessening, and he's glad to see that. His own support system has helped him through decades of police work.

"You have to have someone to talk to about the things that bother you," Garner said, adding he often talked with his wife or a close friend about his difficult days. "(And) I tell our new recruits, you've got to keep a sense of humor. That's important."

Hence the singing gopher on his bookshelf.

'It's inspiring'

Although he's not out on the street as a police officer quite as often these days as when he was younger, Garner still works hard. He's become one of the most visible and accessible public servants in Greeley.

Gates, for example, was one of many city officials who said they meet with Garner on a regular basis outside work. Elder said the same thing. Rourke said he meets with Garner in person at least once per month, and said they have phone conversations at least once per week.

"People just marvel at the fact that the guy is everywhere," Gates said.

Turk said he's learned from Garner in that respect and has tried to incorporate some of Garner's techniques into his own leadership style.

"He's the hardest-working person I've ever seen, in terms of the time he gives the ceremonies, the parades, and he teaches all over the country," he said. "Just when you think he doesn't have any more to give, there he is doing something else. It's inspiring."

The hard work has paid off, too. Of all the jobs he's held and all the places he's been, Garner said he had the most fun in Greeley. He called himself the luckiest police chief in the world.

"We've got good people," he said. "I can't go anywhere here in town without people telling me how much they appreciate my cops."

Mayberry

At a recent lunch with Garner, Gates asked him if he was actually going to retire when he leaves Greeley.

Garner acknowledged he doesn't want to stop. A few cases still haunt him, he said, including the unsolved killing of 12-year-old Kayleah Wilson in 2010. He said although the police believe they know who killed the girl, they haven't been able to prove it sufficiently enough for prosecutors to feel comfortable taking the case.

Recommended Stories For You

"You won't solve every single crime," he said. "But to know who did it and not to be able to arrest them is more frustrating than not knowing at all."

Still, though, he's enjoyed his job so much it's a little disconcerting to think about leaving, he said.

"There's some trauma and drama," he said. "This has been my identity for 49 years. I still sincerely enjoy going to work every day."

He and his wife will retire to central Texas, southwest of Dallas. He said his wife designed and helped build their house there. He's still thinking about getting involved in police work in some capacity.

"I saw a 93-year-old deputy in Texas who just retired, and he still looked pretty good in uniform," Garner said. "Maybe I'll find a Mayberry that needs an Andy."